


You Seem So Very Far

by protectoroffaeries



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Found Family, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Minor Descriptions of Gore, Pre-Relationship, Resurrection Ritual, Spoilers Through Episode 18, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 11:29:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14715180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protectoroffaeries/pseuds/protectoroffaeries
Summary: "But even closer to you,you seem so very farAnd now I'm reaching out with every note I singAnd I hope it gets to you on some pacific windWraps itself around you and whispers in your earTells you that I miss you and I wish that you were here""Wish That Your Were Here"- Florence + the MachineMolly dies at the hands of Caleb's old friend.





	You Seem So Very Far

Their inn room is no temple, but Jester goes to work immediately, drawing symbols of the Traveler on the walls with more focus than Caleb has ever seen. Her eyes are locked on the precise detail, even with tears pouring out of them. She hasn’t stopped crying since Molly fell, but she’s doing admirably keeping the sobs at bay so she can work. Caleb watches Fjord goes to help her, and then on Jester’s instruction, Fjord asks Yasha about symbols of the Stormlord. Yasha silently draws a few on a scrap of paper, and Fjord adds them alongside Jester’s archways and stars. Nott whispers that Molly worships the Moonweaver, and her voice sounds loud in such a silent room, but Fjord nods and tries to replicate the Moonweaver’s symbols in a few places as well. It’s too many gods, Caleb thinks, but it is not his place to interfere with this ritual. It’s his fault they have to do it in the first place. Always his fault.

Caleb keeps his eyes on Jester and Fjord working for as long as possible, but eventually it becomes unavoidable. He has to look at Molly. Nott squeezes his hand as he turns his head, and he gives her a once-over: she looks a little worse for wear, but she’s alive. Jester brought her back in time, zapped the poison from her veins by the grace of the Traveler. Caleb can still the veins in her face, prominent because the poison made them swell, made some of them pop, but she’s alive. Caleb squeezes back, and Nott nods. She doesn’t tell him to look away like she did on the battlefield. She knows he can’t now.

Yasha has Molly’s head cradled in her lap. She took his jewelry off and closed his eyes, and she’s carding her fingers through his hair, gently coaxing lumps of gore and knots from it. Beau is sitting beside her, and her eyes are puffy, though Caleb hasn’t seen or heard her cry. He knows Beau and Molly were fighting worse than usual this morning, but he doesn’t know how much worse. It hardly matters, anyway, except if Jester’s plan fails and Molly never wakes up, Beau will have to live with whatever bullshit she said to him. 

Caleb forces himself to look away from Yasha and Beau, to stop stalling, and his gaze follows Yasha’s fingers through Molly’s hair, over his horns, and Caleb tries not wince at the realization that this is the first time he’s seen Molly without his horn jewelry. Caleb continues, looking down his face, across his closed eyes, and he notices Molly’s mouth is curved a bit, not enough for a half-smile, just enough to be cheeky. Caleb swallows heavily before looking down further, over the peacock feathers and beyond, until his eyes catch on thick, red-dappled white fabric. Molly was messily carved open: a few of his ribs are definitely cracked, his sternum probably as well, and after the blade cleaved through the hard parts, it cut through his stomach with ease. Yasha’s done her best to wrap him in clean bandages, although Caleb can see some bits she missed, a few tears of open skin. They don’t do much beyond hold him together by threads, anyway. Caleb will never forget Molly trying to keep his organs on the inside, desperately trying to put pressure on his stomach for the few seconds he was still standing before the blood loss knocked him out. 

All Molly’s organs are on the inside now, thankfully, but Yasha’s efforts barely help with the smell that’s starting to overtaking him, the acidic stench of a gut wound mixed with the metallic tang of blood. It's not something their noses will get used to, but at least none of them have vomited yet. 

Caleb can’t stop staring at the bandages, though it would probably be a relief to look at Molly’s legs, which are uninjured. Then again, Caleb doesn’t know if he can handle seeing Molly’s tail limp against the hardwood floor; it was always swishing and twitching, even when he was asleep, and now… 

“We’re ready,” Jester says, and Caleb looks at her. Fresh tears pour across the stains already lining her face, but her expression is determined, and for the first time, Caleb feels a small tinge of hope. 

“What do we do?” Yasha asks. She doesn’t look away from Molly, fingers still in his hair.

“We show him that we want him to come back,” says Jester, “that we  _ need  _ him to come back. And… and we show the Traveler, too, how important Molly is to us, so he’ll help. The Traveler and the Stormlord and the Moonweaver, so they’ll all help us.” 

“They won’t be angry that we’re calling all of them?” Beau asks. She looks at the charcoal drawings on the wall for the first time, blinking away fury and grief. 

“I don’t know,” Jester admits. “It seemed better to include all of them than to pick one. I know the Traveler doesn’t like to be excluded.” 

“It will be fine,” says Yasha. “Everything will be fine, let’s just bring him back.” 

Jester nods and kneels beside Yasha, and Fjord sits down next to her. Nott tugs on Caleb’s sleeve, but Caleb has no intention of moving, has no idea what to say other than  _ I’m sorry,  _ and he knows that apologies don’t raise the dead. She tugs more insistently as she climbs out of her chair, and slowly, everyone else looks in his direction, barring Yasha, who still only has eyes for Molly. 

“Get over here,” Fjord says, tone brooking no argument, and Caleb suddenly has the distinct feeling that if he does not come willingly, Fjord will drag him over to the group. The last thing they need is a fight to break out over Molly’s...over Molly, so Caleb stands and follows Nott’s lead until they’re sitting around him, too. 

Once everyone is in the circle, Jester takes a deep breath and wipes her eyes on her sleeve. “I’ll go first,” she says, and no one argues. 

Caleb has heard Jester and Molly speak Infernal before; the two hiss at each other playfully all the time, and it’s always followed by a bursts of uproarious laughter. But it does not sound playful and hissy when Jester opens her mouth and begins to sing, almost putting the naturally musical notes of Celestial to shame with a song sounds surprisingly upbeat to Caleb, until it doesn’t, until it hits a flat point, and Jester dissolves into tears again, and then the tune is heart-wrenchingly sad. She powers through it, though, holds out the final note, as wobbly as her voice becomes. She wipes her face again and says something directly to Molly in Infernal, and she holds her hands out to the rest of them, motioning for someone else to take their turn.

Caleb doesn’t move. Neither does anyone else.

They sit in silence for ten tense seconds before Beau breaks it. “I’ll go,” she says, and she leans forward. 

“I don’t have a pretty song for you like Jester. I don’t have anything pretty for you,” she says, starting out as blunt and awkward as ever. “You and I… our relationship is not pretty. We’re assholes. You-you know we’re both assholes.” She swallows and squeezes her eyes shut. No tears fall as far as Caleb can see, but she does pause for a few seconds before opening her eyes and continuing. “But sometimes, sometimes, well, a lot of the time, I… look, Molly, I went too far this morning. When I said. When I said you should’ve stayed in your grave, that was too far, and I didn’t fucking mean it. You hear me?  _ I didn’t fucking mean it.” _

Beau stops again and swipes her hand over her face. “I’m sorry,” she says, voice cracking. Caleb can’t remember the last time he heard her apologize to Molly. Maybe she never has. “I’m so sorry, alright? Don’t be a dick about this. Don’t make me live with this to prove a point, we all know how much you love proving a goddamn point, but I already get it. I can’t… I’m fucking sorry, Molly, and I didn’t fucking mean it, and we need you, and I… really care about you.” She leans closer Molly and grabs his arm, shaking him a bit. “I fucking care about you.” She shakes him harder.  _ “Wake up.”  _

No one wants to tell her to stop, but Caleb cannot watch her shake him, can’t watch his arms and hands flop around or his head lull in Yasha’s lap, so he says, “Beauregard, please, Beau,” and tries to grab her shoulder. She grabs his wrist before he can touch her, but she lets go of Molly. 

There’s a moment of tension as Beau stares at Molly without letting go of Caleb’s wrist, but then she sighs and releases Caleb, too. “Sorry,” she mutters. “I’m done.”

“Yasha?” Fjord prompts. Caleb notices a few cracks in the mask he’s had on since Molly fell, and he looks so much older and more exhausted than he has any right to. 

“My pack,” whispers Yasha, “could someone get it for me?” 

Nott stands without a word and crosses the room to the bed. She fishes Yasha’s pack out from underneath it. Leave it to Nott to know where everyone keeps their valuables. She drags it across the floor, and the scratch of leather against hardwood is unbearably loud in their low mourning. 

Nott drops the pack beside Yasha, and Yasha nods her thanks. Nott nods back, somber, and sits down beside Caleb again. She takes his hand and squeezes it once more, and bizarrely, Caleb thinks of all those jokes Jester’s made about Nott being his mother. He’s never quite gotten them, still doesn’t, but he appreciates her support in this moment, and in all the tough moments before this. No matter how this goes, he has her. He would like Molly and the rest of the Mighty Nein as well, but he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to look at any of them if this fails.

Yasha pulls her book of dried and pressed flowers out of her pack and flips through it one-handed, the other hand still in Molly’s hair. She stops about a third of the way in, and Caleb cranes his neck to see the page she stops on. Stalks of lavender, carefully preserved, lay spread across two pages, the color of the dried flower clusters almost a perfect match for Molly’s skin. Caleb thinks he can smell the lavender, mixed with the other notes from flowers sandwiched between nearby pages. It’s not enough to mask the putrid smell of Molly. 

“Mollymauk,” Yasha says, voice firm and steady, “We have been through a lot together. You know many of my secrets, and I many of yours. But there are things I have not had a chance to tell you yet. You are my best friend, and I love you. I should have told you that. I should have told you more good things. It is easy for people like you and I, people who fall from the sky and rise from the ground, to feel trapped and to dwell in that feeling, but you… I have learned from you that there is more to life than what has broken us.”

Yasha lifts one stalk of lavender and blows on it, and Caleb is astonished to see it go from dry and flaking to fresh and  _ alive. _ The plant unfurls and plumps, vibrant green returns to the stem, the petals brighten to a healthier, richer purple, the smells gets stronger. Jester and Nott both gasp at the display, and Caleb realizes that Yasha might actually be able to  _ bring Molly back. _

Yasha braids the lavender into Molly’s hair, and then she takes another stalk and breathes life into it and braids it in, too, and then she repeats the process with another and another, until Molly’s hair is completely adorned. She says nothing the whole time, and it’s only when she’s finished that she starts speaking again.

“I collect these flowers,” she tells him, “because they are tiny reminders that the world is better than I give it credit for. I would have never come to that conclusion without you, Molly. I… the Stormlord saved me, and I will be forever grateful to him, but you saved me, too, in a different way. Please let  _ me _ save  _ you _ .” 

Yasha lays her hand on Molly’s head, careful not to muss the braids too much. Tears drip from her face onto Molly’s, and they slide across his skin as if they were his own. As she finishes her contribution, Caleb notices something beneath Molly’s bandages, a dull reddish glow that he initially mistakes for more blood, but as it gets brighter and spreads, he thinks it must be some divine magic power, and his head spins because  _ it’s working,  _ and then as quickly as it began, the glow disappears. 

Caleb waits for Molly to twitch or take a breath, anything that could indicate he’s alive. They all wait. Thirty seconds pass. A minute. Five minutes. Ten. None of them move.  _ Molly _ doesn’t move. Molly doesn’t breathe. Molly doesn’t sit up and laugh at them for being worried. Caleb dares to glance at his tail. Not even the slightest swish. Fifteen minutes pass, and then twenty, thirty, forty-five, and each minute is agonizing. Caleb wishes he’d thought to ask Jester how long this is supposed to take. He can’t tell by her expression whether it’s been  _ too long,  _ and he doesn’t want to ask. Doesn’t know if he can bear the answer.

An hour passes. Then fifteen more minutes. At the hour and thirty mark, Fjord says, “Jester…?”

“It was only supposed to take an hour, max,” she replies. She stares, unblinking, at Molly, tears still rolling down her cheeks. 

_ “ _ No,” says Beau, “No, no, no, that can’t be right… Jester…” 

“Didn’t he say he was dead for two days last time?” Nott says, and her nails dig into Caleb’s hand. He’s not sure if she’s trying to ground him or herself. “He’ll probably be fine in a couple days.”

“Mollymauk,” Yasha says softly, and then she yells,  _ “Molly!”  _

Caleb doesn’t know what to do, but he follows the instinct that’s screaming at him to  _ go to Molly,  _ and he crawls the short distance, crawls over to Molly and grabs him by the shoulders, not sure if he’s going to shake him like Beau or scream at him in Zemnian until he wakes or something else entirely- 

It’s hard to tell how the others are reacting to this sudden move, because Caleb doesn’t rightly  _ care,  _ but also because his head is swimming and pounding, because Molly  _ is dead _ . He thinks Yasha and Beau might be shouting at him, thinks maybe Nott’s tugging on his coattails, thinks perhaps Fjord’s trying to calm everyone, and Jester’s definitely still crying.  _ Molly,  _ Caleb thinks, and maybe he says it aloud, too, hells, he could be screaming it:  _ Molly, Molly, Molly…  _

Molly’s eyes snap open, wide and blood red, and Caleb hears and feels him take a deep, gasping breath. Everything around them snaps back into Caleb’s focus, and everyone else is frozen in place, whatever momentary anarchy Caleb caused put on hold. 

It’s Jester who says, “Molly?” 

“You  _ are _ Molly, right?” adds Beau, “Not Lucien or Nonagon or whoever the fuck…”

Molly blinks a few times, looking a little dazed, before answering, slow and raspy: “Yes, it’s me, that asshole you really care about.” 

Beau chokes out an eloquent,  _ “Motherfucker.” _

Caleb lets go of him and shuffles back a bit, too relieved to feel much embarrassment about his actions. Molly tries to sit up as Caleb moves away, but when he yelps, Yasha coaxes him back into lying down, and he listens to her without protest. 

“You gave us quite a scare,” Fjord tells Molly, which is the biggest understatement Caleb has heard in a long time. 

“Sorry,” Molly says, closing his eyes, “Caleb’s friend didn’t like me, I suppose. Can’t imagine why. I’m a charmer.” 

It’s a weak joke, but they all try to chuckle at it. Caleb tries not to choke on his guilt as he replies, “Wulf has terrible taste. Al-always has.”

“I’ll say. Did you get him?” 

“No,” says Yasha, and no one elaborates. Molly doesn’t ask them to, either.

“What about crazy ex-girlfriend?” He looks at Caleb as he asks, and Caleb flinches at the mention of Astrid. She tried to kill Nott.  _ She tried to kill Nott.  _ It’s difficult to wrap his head around, that someone he once loved so much, tried to  _ kill _ the only person who’s never let him down. Almost as jarring as watching Eodwulf shove his hand into Molly’s gut to drive the final strike home. Sixteen years ago, Caleb would’ve stood beside them as they slaughtered the likes of the Mighty Nein. Would’ve  _ helped.  _ Would’ve enjoyed it, too. 

“You’re talking too much,” Yasha says in that gentle yet forceful way of hers, “focus on healing.”

“I’ll take that as a  _ no.”  _

“We were so worried about you,” Jester says, “we had to let them go.”

“They’ll kill other people,” Molly says, and he braces his hands against the floor and actually tries to push himself up, as if he plans walk out of here right now and go for round two with Wulf. Obviously, he doesn’t get far, and Yasha puts her hand on his shoulder to keep him from trying again. 

“Today they killed  _ you,”  _ Yasha says, “and you are not responsible for their actions.” It sounds like she’s still talking to Molly as she says the second bit, but for the first time since he died, she looks away from him and turns her gaze to Caleb instead. “We will handle them later.”

Molly mumbles something under his breath in Infernal, something that makes Jester giggle wetly, but neither of them share what is so funny. 

***

“You loved him,” Molly says days later, when he corners Caleb on the balcony of one of the  _ fancy rooms  _ Jester insisted they purchase for recovery purposes. No one was about to argue with her.

Molly’s cornering style has changed a bit; he’s leaning against the railing, not blocking the door or forcing eye contact. He’s not touching Caleb at all, or even looking at him. And yet, Caleb still feels cornered, because while he could technically walk away, he  _ can’t  _ leave Molly after he caused his death. Astrid and Wulf would’ve never targeted the Mighty Nein if Caleb wasn’t part of the group.

“Eodwulf was a close friend, yes,” Caleb says. No point in stalling. 

“And you were in love with her.”

“Yes, but that was a very long time ago.”

“I hear you don’t forget your first, though,” he says, and he glances over at Caleb, a grin on his face, “unless you’re me, of course.” 

Molly looks better. Not great, but better. He has three thick, vertical scars bisecting the countless horizontal ones he put on his chest himself, but he a loose shirt on right now, and of course, his coat, which has been repaired with bits of a tapestry decorated in the style of the Platinum Dragon, so most of the damage is covered. Still, he looks bone-weary, and Caleb suspects he’s been sneaking around against Jester’s orders.  

“Not forgetting and still being in love are entirely different things,” Caleb says, and then he sighs, because he wishes he  _ could  _ forget. “I’m certain you have a reason for instigating this conversation, so don’t be shy in getting to it.”

“If you want to sit out when I go to kill them, I understand,” Molly says. “The rest of the group would understand, too.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I need to be there.”

“You really don’t, but I’m not going to stop you.” Molly looks over the garden behind the inn, at the trees beyond it, and he pauses for a moment. “I heard everything, you know. When I was dead. Not sure how.” He chuckles. “Beau is such a bitch.” 

“Beau loves you. So do Jester and Yasha.”

“Yeah, I heard that, too.” 

“Fjord, Nott, and I do as well.”

“Didn’t hear that part.” Caleb almost says that he didn’t think they  _ all  _ needed to say it, but in that moment, they probably all did. “Heard you screaming, though.” 

Caleb doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t remember screaming.

“I thought you were going to do something,” Molly continues. 

“What else could I have done? Wait, were you  _ waiting  _ for something else? Is that why-”

Molly waves a hand, keeps staring into the distance. “No, I was… it was little difficult to come back. Probably because I’ve done it before, I don’t know. I woke up as soon as I could.” 

“What else could I have done, Molly?” Caleb repeats, because he honestly wants to know. 

Molly shrugs. “All of you did everything you could, I guess. And it paid off. I’ve never been better.” A blatant lie. Caleb’s never seen him worse. But Molly pushes off the railing and walks inside before Caleb can respond. Conversation over. Caleb’s not sure he understands why they had it at all. 

Caleb grips the railing and leans over it, looks out in the direction Molly was staring, as if the horizon line might know what the hell Molly expected of him. It doesn’t help at all, just refreshes the old weight within him, dragging him down as he watches the sky turn red with the sunset. 

 


End file.
